30 March, 2006

Neil Emmerson's practice is based around printmaking, with his prints often incorporated into complex installations of diverse materials. A recurrent interest in Emmerson's work is the representation of masculinity and male sexuality. The artist draws connections between the varied and complex strands of male socialisation and interaction. His installations often bring together parallel narratives that operate in a single space.Russell Storer. Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art. Sydney

Neil Emmerson has sidestepped, with finesse, the Utopic earnestness of American Queer just as he has the tyranny of an Australian scene that no sooner sees an evocation of gay desire than it dumps it in a basket named Gay Art and pops the lid back on. Indeed, as one of Australia's most intelligent installation artists, he has built up, over 20 years, a body of work unique in it's subtle poetics: what Foucault might call an ascesis - an ethics of living.

This exhibition by Neil Emmerson brings together work from a series of consecutive projects produced over the past 4 to 5 years.

(habit@t) 2002 and (the picnic) 2004 were produced in Newcastle NSW, (I was his...) 2005 and (paradise lost) 2006 were produced since living here in Darwin.

(habit@t) 2002 investigated a particular location, an ANZAC memorial garden in Civic Park, Newcastle where there was an obelisk, a fountain and a central lawn surrounded by a thicket of garden, edged with memorial plaques dedicated to soldiers from the local district who had their lives cut short by the second world war. This is not an unusual phenomena. In many cities, suburbs and country towns all around Australia there are similar monuments in local parks and gardens to commemorate the sacrifice of young men's lives to war. As with the garden in Newcastle it would perhaps not be unusual for these locations, generally abandoned at night, to be the site of other rituals of masculine celebration and interaction. Cruising for sex in parks and gardens is as old and ubiquitous as the celebration and memorialisation of war itself. The construction of masculinity within this present culture feeds off this idea of the heroic, young (heterosexual) male at war, at war with other young men. The double-barrel nature of the situation presented in these locations is provocatively illustrated in a short piece of text by Jean Genet: I was his at once, as if (who said that) he had discharged through my mouth straight into my heart.

Here is a clever, poetic (Queer) concoction, a conflation of rapture and confession, capture and surrender, that swings strategically between the literal and the metaphoric. This text continues to be used through the development of these related projects.

Following on from the initial engagement with the memorial garden in Civic Park Emmerson has extended this theme into the contemporary theatre of war as we are presented it through the news media in it's various forms. However the garden remains a focus and the idea of a memorial is a feature of each. Emmerson's critique of contemporary warfare has another thrust, one exhibiting the artist as delinquent or even (we think of Genet's Funeral Rites and the German soldier Erik buggering the young collaborator Rikon against a brick monument during the Fall of Paris), as outlaw lover. For the fact is that Emmerson has set his sights on a Queer desire for soldiers and thus the pathos of war. Such logic of course rudely displaces the symmetry of heterosexual binaries with what Leo Bersani describes as the “anti-relationality inherent in all homo-ness.”(gallery pdf)

In 1991 Franck Gohier graduated with a BA (Fine Arts, majoring in printmaking) from the then Northern Territory University, where he also worked as a studio printmaker/lecturer between 1993-96. During this time, Gohier co-founded (along with Leon Stainer and George Watts) a series of groundbreaking printmaking workshops involving Indigenous artists from remote communities throughout the Top End and Desert regions of North Australia. The important links forged by this team of printmakers, between the University and several key Indigenous art communities, formed the foundation of the Northern Editions Printmaking Studio, recently described by former Chancellor Mrs Nancy Giese, AO OBE as ‘the jewel in the crown’ of Charles Darwin University.

In 1997, Gohier co-founded Red Hand Print Studio together with Shaun Poustie (also formerly of Northern Editions), an ideologically radical and independently spirited venture, which continued Gohier’s involvement with the tuition of printmaking skills to Indigenous communities, later extending this to prisoners at Berrimah Jail.

The range of Gohier’s creative accomplishments include intaglio and relief printing, painting, collage, sculpture and filmmaking. To this should be added his impressive history of poster production. In April 2004, the Charles Darwin University Art Collection confirmed its acceptance of seventy-nine (79) poster prints by Gohier dating from 1997-2002, emanating from the pioneering printmaking studio of Red Hand.more from charles darwin uni

28 March, 2006

Barkly Regional Arts is a networking and resource organisation that responds to the cultural and artistic needs of the communities in the Barkly Region, an area covering 300,000 square kilometres. Based at Tennant Creek NT http://www.barklyarts.com.au/index.htm

Click on the 'Photo albums' heading and see photographs from several print workshops.

27 March, 2006

A new museum to house the 12000 objects of Japanese art from the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoirewww.mrah.be

As of 22 March, Brussels will host a new museum, the Musée d’Art japonais (Museum of Japanese Art). It will set up in a building built in the beginning of the XXth century, near the Japanese Tower and behind the Chinese Pavilion, of which in the beginning it was to be an annex, the garage and stable. The Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire (Royal Museums of Art and History) have decided to renovate this abandoned outbuilding, whose access was forbidden for a long time to the public, to present their collections of classical Japanese art in them.

The new Museum of Japanese art hosts the collections of classical Japanese art kept by the Musées royaux d’art et d’histoire (Royal Museums of Art and History), which concentrated on the Edo period (1600-1868). The nearly 12.000 pieces of this important patrimony will never all be exposed at the same time. The policy is to create significant ensembles from this important fund, to present them permanently, but through regular rotation, given the frailness of the works. The choices thus made demonstrate the Japanese know-how, acquired in particular in the arts of metal, lacquer, painting, xylography, textile, ceramics and sculpture.

25 March, 2006

Italian painter. In the middle of the sixteenth century Arcimboldo made a normal debut with youthful works including designs for window s and tapestries respectively in Milan and Monza cathedrals and frescos for the cathedral of Como. None of these gave any inkling of the bizarre originality he would soon develop. In 1562 he was summoned to the Imperial court in Prague and almost immediately his original and grotesque fantasy was unleashed.

He invented a portrait type consisting of painted animals,flowers,fruit, and objects composed to form a human likeness. Some are satiric portraits of court personages, and others are allegorical personifications. Arcimboldo's style has been so often imitated over the centuries that it is sometimes difficult to make exact attributions. He has been seen by some as the forerunner of Surrealism in the 20th century, but, more to the point, he should be seen in his own context at the end of the Renaissance. This was a time when people (collectors and scientists alike) were beginning to pay more attention to nature. Arcimboldo really created the fantastic image of the court in Prague, creating costumes, set designs, and decorations.

the aesops fables Aesop’s fables have been told through pictures since their first appearance on a fifth century vase displaying a single image of the fox and the grapes. The fables were represented visually through illuminated manuscripts, and later in 1461 as woodcuts by an anonymous artist in the first printed illustrated book. From the 15th century to the 17th century, each new edition of Aesop’s fables was re-illustrated with engravings that closely resembled one another in compositional and stylistic motifs.

In 1567, the Flemish artist Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder created a series of engravings which included more realistic detail than the 1461 woodcuts.Francis Cleyn (1651) and Wenceslaus Hollar (1665) closely mimicked Gheeraerts' engravings with minimal changes. Francis Barlow (1666) reinvented the old motifs, adding drama and variation to the compositions. His series is the most elaborate of the British illustrations; artistscopied him throughout the following centuries (Hodnett)http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/geir002tuss01/geir002tuss01_001.htm

Marcus Gheeraerts came to London from Bruges in 1568, when Queen Elizabeth was 35. He lived here until 1577, but his son, also named Marcus, stayed in this country and continued the family tradition as a brilliant court painter. Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I, signed Gheererts, could be painted by father or son, unless a particular portrait was commissioned and painted after 1577, in which case it would have been the work of the son. No-one knows when the mystery portrait at Hampton Court was painted.

The Paul Juraszek monolith was inspired by an etching called Allegory of iconoclasm by Marcus Gheeraerts the elder, a Flemish engraver, illustrator and painter best remembered as the illustrator of the 1567 edition of Aesop's fables. Wills saw the etching in a book whilst researching some paintings he was making based on the apocalypse and thought heÕd like to do something with it.

Casting around for a subject for his own version, Wills thought of Paul Juraszek whom he had met when they showed at the same gallery. Juraszek is a Melbourne-based sculptor, who makes mostly animals from myths and legends. "As it turned out he suited the subject even better than I could possibly have imagined," says Wills.

Infidélités is an artists’ book that speaks of fidelity. The edition is comprised of twenty-one books, all containing - in either a blue binding or a wooden box - the works of six artists and a writer.

This project originated on a bitter cold January afternoon in 2004, around a pot of hot tea at the quiet Sablo Kafé in Montreal. A group of people connected in one way or another to the large web printmaking had managed to spin across the province of Quebec and get together hoping to relive the enriching experience of a collaborative artwork. Infidélités, the artists’ book, was to become the answer to their quest.

The finished product contains twelve artworks and three pages of text in an unusually elongated box (15 x 45 cm). Each artist has created two works: the first follows the chosen theme; the second replies to the interpretation of the theme by the other participants in the project. The writer repeats this creative process with a first variation, followed by two more variations inspired by the artworks and the animated studio meetings. From these the writer has added a chosen extract. The interactive aspect adds dynamism to this artists’ book - as one flips through the loose pages, one tends to look for links that could tie the works together.

When we chose the title Infidélités our purpose was to free ourselves from the restraints imposed by the traditional artist’s book, the book that contained only original prints and a text. “Ma fidélité est ma liberté”, writes Andrée Dandurand. The finished product however shows loyalty: loyalty first to old friendships, but also loyalty to work well done and to noble materials.

This book is respectful of traditional printmaking techniques (lino, intaglio, silkscreen), weaving and collage, drawing and painting, as well as binding. The most faithful to the theme are Hélène Goulet and Andres Manniste: they use printmaking techniques to explore relationships. Elisabeth Dupond is faithful to her long practice of printmaking by reusing the dry point technique on a painted surface. Julianna Joos shows her attachment to her printmaking tools in her prints before experimenting with jacquard weaving. Lorraine Dagenais and Johanne Lemaire remain faithful to their respective techniques in painting and drawing, unfaithful to the concept of identical images.

At the turn of the century, a new breed of art practitioner is prevalent: those obsessed with power, fame and beauty. Well, in a way…

Feminist Actions presents various subjective, identity-based renditions of past and present cultural symbols such as the cowboy, the debutante, the narcissist and the female rock/pop star. Power, beauty and fame are treated with critical distance in an endeavour to explore current modes of feminist politics in contemporary art and discourse. Ambiguity and playfulness are key themes in Feminist Actions with the title giving an ironic nod to the ‘right-on’ feminist actions of the 1970s.

Physical / Virtual Sites presents Perth-based artist, Nicola Kayecurrent research into virtual communities and contemporary visualinterrogative practices. This exhibition marks the culmination ofKaye's web residency at PICA and questions civic participation withinthe public sphere and within the Internet. Public interaction withthe site is integral, and the active modes of webcam, blog andchatroom aim to provide differing levels for interactivity to takeplace. Sit down, interact and make a history.

The Centre for Fine Print Research (CFPR) is committed to bringing contemporary print to a wide audience through arranging exhibitions, loaning artworks and the building up of print archives. The Centre regularly attends artists' book fairs and events related to all aspects of contemporary print. Staff at the CFPR participate in many UK and International exhibitions each year and curate exhibitions for other institutions and galleries.

20 March, 2006

2006 Contemporary Commonwealth is the second major collaborative survey of contemporary art presented by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) at Federation Square in Melbourne. This exhibition of groundbreaking work by artists from countries across the Commonwealth opens Friday 24 February at both venues.http://www.art2006.com.au/

When the Australian Centre for the Moving Image and the National Gallery of Victoria first collaborated to produce 2004: Australian Culture Now, our intention was to bring to Melbourne a major contemporary art survey of national importance. The result was truly an agenda-setting exhibition — it provoked wide discussion and debate, and focused increased attention on many of Australia’s most interesting contemporary artists.

2006 Contemporary Commonwealth is a very different exhibition, but its ambitions are no less significant. Bringing together twenty-two artists from Australia and countries from across the Commonwealth, it is presented as the flagship exhibition of Festival Melbourne2006, the cultural program of the Melbourne 2006 Commonwealth Games. With Federation Square becoming one of the main live sites for the Games, we are especially excited to unite our two venues for one landmark exhibition.

This exhibition takes advantage of the opportunities for cultural exchange made possible by a major international sporting event. Just as we consume culture in a global arena, artists increasingly respond to issues and images beyond their national boundaries. With contributors from as far afield as Ghana and Pakistan, 2006 Contemporary Commonwealth uses the occasion of the Commonwealth Games to investigate these international networks and connections.

Originally blogged in November 2005, this is a reminder for the Biennial International Miniature Print Exhibition at www.bimpe.com

BIMPE is a miniature print competition held every 2 years, and hosted by New Leaf Editions and Dundarave Print Workshop, both on Granville Island, Vancouver, Canada. The intent of BIMPE is to facilitate international artistic exchange and to increase public awareness and appreciation for printmaking.

The deadline for entries is May 15th 2006

BIMPE IV will take place on Granville Island in Vancouver in June and July of 2006. The show will be held during June at the Federation of Canadian Artists Gallerywww.artists.ca and at Dundarave Print Workshop during July. printsbimpe.com/prints

18 March, 2006

wendy's exhibition is large format photographs of site-specific installations at mill point and small sculptural installations in the gallery space. the work speaks about human occupation of the site. it speaks about hopes unfulfilled, and loss of culture, and environment

Wendy McGrath's photographic exhibition, 'Making Something from Nothing' is a series of site-specific installations at Mill Point on Noosa's Lake Cootharabah.

"The only thing the market liked better than a hot young artist was a dead hot young artist, and it got one in Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose working life of about nine years was truncated by a heroin overdose at the age of twenty-seven.

His career, both actual and posthumous, appealed to a cluster of toxic vulgarities. First, the racist idea of the black as naif or rhythmic innocent, and of the black artist as "instinctual," someone outside "mainstream" culture and therefore not to be rated in its terms: a wild pet for the recently cultivated collector.

Second, a fetish about the freshness of youth, blooming among the discos of the East Side scene.

Third, guilt and political correctness, which made curators and collectors nervous about judging the work of any black artist who could be presented as a "victim."

Fourth, art-investment mania. And last, the audience's goggling appetite for self-destructive talent: Pollock, Montgomery Clift. All this gunk rolled into a sticky ball around Basquiat's tiny talent and produced a reputation.

"Basquiat's career was incubated by the short-lived graffiti movement, which started on the streets and subway cars in the early 1970s, peaked, fell out of view, began all over again in the 1980s, peaked again, and finally receded, leaving Basquiat and the amusingly facile Keith Haring as its only memorable exponents. Unlike Haring, however, Basquiat never tagged the subways. The son of middle-class Brooklyn parents, he had a precocious success with his paintings from the start. The key was not that they were "primitive," but that they were so arty. Stylistically, they were pastiches of older artists he admired: Cy Twombly, Jean Dubuffet.

Having no art training, he never tried to deal with the real world through drawing; he could only scribble and jot, rehearsing his own stereotypes, his pictorial nouns for "face" or "body" over and over again.

Consequently, though Basquiat's images look quite vivid and sharp at first sight, and though from time to time he could bring off an intriguing passage of spiky marks or a brisk clash of blaring color, the work quickly settles into the visual monotony of arid overstyling. Its relentless fortissimo is wearisome.

Critics made much of Basquiat's use of sources: vagrant code-symbols, quotes from Leonardo or Gray's Anatomy , African bushman art or Egyptian murals. But these were so scattered, so lacking in plastic force or conceptual interest, that they seem mere browsing - homeless representation.

"The claims made for Basquiat were absurd and already seem like period pieces. 'Since slavery and oppression under white supremacy are visible subtexts in Basquiat's work ,' intoned one essayist in the catalog to his posthumous retrospective at the Whitney Museum, 'he is as close to Goya

Another extolled his 'punishing regime of self-abuse' as part of 'the disciplines imposed by the principle of inverse asceticism to which he was so resolutely committed.' Inverse asceticism, apparently, is PC-speak for addiction. There was much more in, so to speak, this vein.

But the effort to promote Basquiat into an all-purpose inflatable martyr-figure, the Little Black Rimbaud of American painting, remains unconvincing."From "American Visions", by Robert Hughesthe basquiat camp strikes back

quotes + I start a picture and I finish it. I don't think about art while I work. I try to think about life. + I thought I was going to be a bum the rest of my life. + I was a really lousy artist as a kid. Too abstract expressionist, or I'd draw a ram's head, really messy. I'd never win painting contests. I remember losing to a guy who did a perfect spiderman. + I had some money, I made the best paintings ever. I was completely reclusive, worked a lot, took a lot of drugs. I was awful to people. + Believe it or not, I can actually draw. + Since I was 17 I thought I might be a star.

SAMO Graffiti - Basquiat began as a graffiti artist, signing his name as SAMO. Below are a few SAMO sayings or SAMO quotes.. SAMO as a neo art form SAMO as an end to to mindwash religion, nowhere politics and bogus philosophy. SAMO as an escape clause. SAMO as an end to playing art. SAMO as an end to bogus pseudo intellectual. My mouth, therefore an error. Plush safe.. he think. SAMO as an alternative 2 playing art with the 'radical chic' sect on Daddy's $ funds.photos ofdante reviewhoban review

17 March, 2006

Banduk MarikaBanumbirr (The Morning Star) Part of the Yalangbara Suite, one of six colour reduction lino prints which explore the theme of Guyurr (the journey) of the Ancestor creators Djan’kawu to the shores of northeast Arnhem Land. The Djan’kawu, two sisters and their brother, come from the east by canoe to Arnhem Land and then travelled west creating names, animals, landforms and languages and giving birth to the Dhuwa moiety clans of the area. The suite of six prints depicts the stages in the siblings’ journey from the island of Barralku to the shores of the mainland. Printed at Basil Hall Editions Darwin by Neil Emmerson 2006.

16 March, 2006

UNNATURAL SELECTIONAn exhibition of sculpture and installation driven and inspired by technology, re-creating and re-interpreting natural elements and environments.

Unnatural Selection challenges the crude capitalist mutation of Darwin's 'survival of the fittest' by creating a safe ecosystem for delicate technological hybrids to thrive. The works offer inspiration as well as insights into the mutualism of nature, the technological tools of our creation, and ourselves.

This is the first large scale new media art exhibition to take place at the Manning Regional Gallery, Taree (5 hours north of Sydney).

The PhotoMedia Award is held every two years and showcases the work of Australia's foremost professional creative practitioners working in photographic media including photo-installation, analogue, digital and on-line or computer-based art.

15 March, 2006

Art.1 The VIIIth. Edition of Premio Acqui is organised by the International Biannual Association for Engraving and is supported by the Rotary Club of Acqui Terme, the Region of Piedmont, the Acqui Terme Council and the Fondazione CRT.

Art.2 The Biennial Exhibition is open to any engraver and entry into the competition is free. Each artist should send only one work completed after January 1st 2005 in chalcography or xylography (Any work that has been produced in part by a different technique will not be accepted) The works must not have been used for commercial printing or placed in any other exhibition or public event before. The maximum size of entries is 50cm x 70cm. The works can’t be in a frame or in a passé-partout.

Art.3 Each artist should send one copy of his/her work and a photograph or a laser photocopy of his/her work (18x24 cm size) with the title of the work, the technique and the year of completion written on the reverse side. In addition the artist must attach the entry form ( at the bottom ) ; this can be downloaded from www.acquiprint.it

The entry, the copy and the entry form should be sent to: PREMIO ACQUI Biennale Europea per l'incisione C/o Assessorato alla Cultura - Palazzo Robellini Piazzetta Levi n.1 - 15011 Acqui Terme ( AL ) Italia Works must be sent on or before October 31st 2006; the works sent after this date will not be accepted.

Art.4 A Jury will select the works and will decide which ones to include in the catalogue and in the exhibition and the ones to submit to the people’s Jury. The people’s Jury will decide the winners of the Prizes.

Art.5 The Selection Jury is made up of academics and critics from the world of engraving, and noted cultural experts. The People’s Jury is made up of citizens from Acqui Terme and the district of Monferrato.

Art.6 The prize of 5,000 Euros is awarded in 2007 at the opening ceremony for the Biannual. Its conferment carries with it the loss of rights to the original and to any copies being made from it. The Jury reserves the right to set up Purchase Prizes.

Art.7 At the end of the exhibition the Biennial will retain the works which will be included in the collection of the Museum of Engraving – Castello dei Paleologi in Acqui Terme.

Art.8 The Management of the Biennial reserve the right to exhibit the aforementioned works as they see fit.

Art.9 By taking part in the competition, artists accept all rules and regulations.

Welcome This is the new Portal of the International Biennal of Engraving: the demonstration, organized by the International Biennial association for the incision and patronized by the Rotary Club Acqui Terme, from the Region Piedmont, from the Commune of Acqui Terme, from the Foundation C.R.T., introduces the VIII edition of the Acqui Prize, that will take place in the spring 2007.

The VIII edition testifies the continuity and the seriousness of the event, subscribed in the list of the 37 best demonstrations of the sector currently celebrated in the world.

14 March, 2006

CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTS PROJECTS SA 2006 Project 1John Nixon will exhibit paintings from his ongoing EPW (Experimental Painting Workshop) series, staged to great acclaim at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, in 2004. Site-specific painting installations have been selected especially for this Adelaide exhibition, determining a relationship with other works by Nixon in Linda Michael's 21st Century Modern - the 2006 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of SA - allowing a broad range of Nixon's work to be seen in several sites and contexts. The CACSA exhibition thus acts as a satellite exhibition to the Adelaide Biennial.

As with the artist's library and record collection which are dutifully arranged according to subject, genre and decade, the material nature of Nixon's work is pragmatic and empirical, reiterating and reworking the history and vitality of abstraction, constructivism and the readymade. A political imperative motivates Nixon's prolific production and unwavering commitment to these traditions - which is the desire to emphasise and extend the history of abstraction, minimal and conceptual art in Australia and to redress the institutional neglect and art historical amnesia that has generally attended these tendencies. Nixon's approach pursues two fundamental, yet divergent paths in the development of modernist art practice - the readymade and the monochrome. His commitment to the monochrome militates against narrative and illusion in order to focus upon the fundamental language and epistemology of painting itself. In Nixon's approach, the readymade paradigm is essentially relativist, foregrounding the contextualisation of the artwork and its interconnectedness with social and cultural frameworks.

Nixon's work draws attention to the role that memory, imagination and hope play in the elaboration of cultural practice. By coupling a critical/historical awareness with commonplace, yet inspired processes of material transformation, Nixon's work achieves a state of poetry and epic theatre.

Country Arts SA is the principal provider of arts programs to country South Australians.

Through a range of programs, including performing arts touring, visual arts touring, gallery spaces, community cultural development funding, and the management of four major regional arts centres, Country Arts SA increases access and participation in the arts for all South Australians.

Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual ConferenceThursday 30 November – Saturday 2 December 2006

Reinventing the Medium Faculty of Art & Design, Monash University

The conference aims to address the state of the art medium in art history and into the twenty-first century. With an eye on Rosalind Krauss’ recent critique of the ‘post-medium condition’ – in which the medium is ‘outmoded, cashiered, washed-up, finished’ – and another on the extravaganza of photo-based art and digital media, the conference encourages critical responses which address some or all of the following, in relation to Australian, New Zealand and international art:

• The medium in art history and theory (‘old’ and new media)• The entropy of postmodernism and the return of modernism• The challenge of photo-based representation to traditional aesthetic paradigms• Aesthetics and pluralism in the post-medium age• Installation art• The ‘crisis’ in art criticism• Authorship and copyright• Popular culture and commerce in and as art• Fashion and design as aesthetic ‘crimes’• Multimedia, digital art and aesthetics

Convenors: Associate Professor Anne Marsh and Dr Daniel Palmer

Call for session topics Prospective session chairs are invited to propose topics for conference sessions (up to 4 x 20 minute papers plus discussion time). The session chair may invite particular speakers to contribute to the session or receive submissions on the topic from the general call.

Call for papers Prospective speakers are invited to submit proposals for 20 minute paper presentations on one or more of the conference themes (or session themes, once these are made available). In addition, there will be an ‘open’ stream in the conference, for sessions and topics which do not fit the broad areas listed above. Submissions must include contact details (phone, email, and postal), institutional affiliation where applicable, and AV requirements. Abstracts will be reviewed by the conference convenors and/or session chairs.

13 March, 2006

John Peart arrived in Sydney in 1964 from Brisbane. Very soon he was recognised as a leading non-figurative artist within Australia and has been included in numerous definitive exhibitions. His work is in the Australian National Gallery, all State Galleries and numerous other collections. He spent five years in the 1970's overseas, especially in New York and England.

Contemporary art in the North Atlantic HouseColonials is the opening exhibition in the North Atlantic House. It is open from the 27th. of November 2003 until 29th. of February 2004.The exhibition provides insight into the North Atlantic art scene with art work by 21 artists from Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Colonials gives you sculptures, paintings and installations.

“Colonials” is an exhibition that gives a broad sense of contemporary art in Greenland, The Faroe Islands and Iceland. The 21 artists who take part in the exhibition are representatives of both the middle- and the young generation of artists, and as such, provide the audience with an insight into what is ‘happening’ on the North Atlantic art scene – whether it be in the form of sculpture, painting, or installation.

The artistic and personal approaches vary extensively, and the artists employ a wide range of materials and techniques. At the same time, their work is representative of the prevailing styles and trends of their native countries.

The exhibition’s title – “Colonials” – refers to the history of the wharehouse in which it takes place. For 200 years, the adjacent square, #145;Greenland’s Trading Square’, and the wharehouse constituted a centre for trade between Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Finmark, Iceland and, in particular, Greenland.

Through the centuries, provisions from the Danish colonies in the North Atlantic were imported and traded at this site, and for Greenlanders, Icelanders and Farovians living in Copenhagen, the square and the wharehouse were a symbol of Denmarks status as a colonial power

The exhibition takes its name from an exclusive furniture shop in Melbourne, near to where Gosia now lives. The shop sells state of the art, designer furniture of great beauty and great prices by Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson and others. Gosia writes,

“people go there (we go there too) to look, to desire, to possess these chairs, sofas…..Not many can afford them. They (we) come home and visualise their (our) space with the dreamed of object which they (we) will never be able to buy. They (we) create a dreamland of an ‘exclusive’ interior design magazine lifestyle; but a dreamland based on delusion and longing for an unattainable paradise. Desire and delusion. But many think that they can substitute them with more affordable, ‘similar’, (well, almost the same) items from different stores, like Dare Furniture, Freedom, and Oz Design. Exclusive original and its replacement with an affordable substitute.”

The exhibition is an installation of three major works: composite panels of drawings taking the form of a sofa, a coffee table and a chair (with high off set window), each one occupying a full wall in the gallery.

Gosia Wlodarczak now lives in Richmond, Victoria, having moved from Perth in April 2005. In the latter part of 2005 she won the Hutchins Drawing Prize, Hobart, Tasmania and the $25000 art prize award at Whyalla in South Australia.

Born in Poland in 1959, Gosia Wlodarczak was awarded a Master of Fine Arts diploma with distinction from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland (1984).

Since settling in Perth in 1996, Gosia has established a growing national reputation as a leading practitioner in the medium of drawing. In 2003 she was the only interstate artist to be invited to participate in Art On The Rocksmix tape at the Art Gallery of WA. In 2003 and 2004 she was the only Western Australian finalist in the Dobell Drawing Prize held at the Art Gallery of NSW. in Sydney, won the Joondalup Art Award, and was one of 13 leading WA artists to exhibit in

In 2004 she participated in the Fifth Drawing Biennale at the Drill Hall Gallery in Canberra, was a finalist in Jacaranda Drawing Prize in Grafton, NSW, received Second Prize in Hutchins Works on Paper Prize in Tasmania and held three solo exhibitions at: Gallery East, North Fremantle, Arc One Gallery, Melbourne and Helen Maxwell Gallery, Canberra.

In 2004 an extensive study of Gosia Wlodarczak’s work, NOW: Gosia Wlodarczak, drawing 1986-2004 was written by Dr David Bromfield. Wlodarczak was on of eight Australian artists featured by Artlink magazine’s September issue in an essay, Poetics of Agrophobia, by Dr Ian Mclean.

Gallery East represents emerging and established contemporary Western Australian artists, as well as specialising in the traditional and contemporary arts and crafts of Japan and those Australian and international artists who have been influenced by Japanese aesthetics.

10 March, 2006

The pale, puffy torso is washed up on shore with the waves rolling and frothing behind. The sky looks cloudy, the sand wet and the sea cold - it is plainly not a great beach day. It is interesting, then, that at least one person has described this digital print by Julie Rrap as a contemporary take on Max Dupain's Sunbaker, a photograph that dates from an indisputably glorious beach day in 1937.

In Dupain's shot, the body is brown, muscular and sun-drenched. But in Rrap's Pearl John, the form is soft and fleshy and verging on the grotesque, wrapped as it is around a rock. Skin merges into seascape.

2006 Australian Events in FranceFrom the Australian Embassy in France------------------------------------------------20 March - 14 April Alliance en résonances Alliance Française

Come experience Australian and French culture during Alliance Française’s exciting and busy program of events which ranges from contemporary dance, a fine selection of Australian films, contemporary Australian art, a French photo exhibition inspired from the Australian landscape, debates and conferences.

The program for «Alliance en résonances» with the Australian network of Alliances françaises in Australia :

17 - 30 April, an exhibition featuring works of art from French artists having worked in Australia: photographs from the outback by Alain Rival Outback, Sydney water colours by Olivier Balez… At the Alliance française de Paris, 101 Bd Raspail, 75006 Paris.

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Tuesday 25 April ANZAC DAY 2006 - FRANCE

A range of Anzac Day services and activities will be held throughout France in 2006; an outline of the program follows below.

Please note:

This information will be brought up-to-date regularly, so you might like consult this site every now and again, if you are intending to attend some of the ceremonies and activities

In most cases there is no need to register your presence at the ceremonies or the other activities such as concerts [which are usually free of charge]. However there are a few exceptions, usually for catering reasons, where you will have to inform the organisers and pay on the day

For visitors from Australia or elsewhere, you might like to consider spending more than a day attending the commemorations in Paris or in the Somme or in the Pas-de-Calais regions. You can take the opportunity to visit a series of Australian monuments or cemeteries, scattered over the northern area of France, and become immersed in the history of the Australian role in World War One [and perhaps also in World War Two if you are thinking of visiting the Normandy beaches] or follow in the footsteps of one of your family members who fought in France. At the same time you can explore these regions which offer a wealth of sites for the curious tourist. For more information - both practical and historical - you should consult: www.somme-battlefields.com and www.amiens.com/tourisme

You might like to participate in other Anzac Day commemorations in Europe, eg in London or in Ypres [Ieper] in the Flanders region in Belgium so please consult the website of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs: www.dva.gov.au/commem/anzac

Tuesday 25 April 2006

Paris

6.15am An Anzac Day Dawn Service will be held at the Australian Embassy in Paris. Refreshments will be provided after the service.

Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône)

6.30am Provisionally there will be an Anzac Day Dawn Service in the Main Town Square, Aix-en-Provence. Refreshments will be provided after the service.

Saturday 29 April 2006

Villers-Bretonneux (Somme)

10.00am The ANZAC DAY program in Villers-Bretonneux will start with a ceremony at the Australian National Memorial with accompanying music provided by the combined orchestra, choir and brass band of Wesley College Melbourne and St Andrews Cathedral School Sydney. Refreshments will be provided before the program begins for participants arriving early.

11.00am This ceremony will be followed by a wreath laying service at the French Monument in the town centre, next to the town hall.

11.30am The winner of the Sadlier-Stokes Scholarship for 2006 will be announced at Victoria Hall located in local primary school , rue de Melbourne, followed by refreshments in the school courtyard.

Bullecourt (Pas-de-Calais)

3.00pm An Anzac Day ceremony will be held at the Commonwealth and French Monuments in the Bullecourt village centre in fron of the church, with music provided by Wesley College Melbourne for the afternoon’s commemorations.

4.00pm A wreath-laying service will complete the day’s ceremonial program at the Australian 'Digger' Memorial on the village outskirts. Refreshments will be provided afterwards in the local hall.

Other activities linked to the Anzac Day commemorations include:

- Villers-Bretonneux will hold an 'Australia Week' during the ANZAC DAY period from Friday 28 April until Thursday 4 May, including concerts, film screenings, and aerial visits of the local battlefields.

- The visiting school orchestras will also provide musical accompaniment for two of the evening services at 6.30pm at the Arc-de-Triomphe for the rekindling of the flame at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Thursday 27 and Saturday 29 April, as well as concert in Villers-Bretonneux during the evening of Friday 28 April, and two concerts on Sunday, 30 April in Amiens.

Visitors, local and regional inhabitants are welcome to attend the events and activities listed above.

07 March, 2006

The Print Australia website has been hosted by acay/telpacific since 1999. The site is temporarily offline but can always be viewed at the internet archive site here. where it has been archived since Jan 2000. Expect to see a new rebuild coming soon.